Finishing the Race!

Life has been super, super full!!  Between summer missions things, school ending and end of the year parties, and getting ready for our trip to SC and Colorado, we have been running 90 miles per minute. I would love to share some highlights in pictures from the week and then share two cool God stories that give you a small glimpse into how the Lord is moving here!

Emerson’s school hosted a Fathers Day fun time for the dads to come in, compete, and love on their kids. Emerson LOVED having her daddy come and she says she was worried he would get hurt as he was competing with the other dads in tug of way (he didn’t, by the way).

Just in the past week or so, we have eaten at two different ethnic places as a project (Caribbean and Mediterranean) and hosted a breakout time where students could get specific training in apologetics, culture and race, prayer, and financial stewardship. I got to lead the financial stewardship breakout and I LOVE getting to use how the Lord has gifted me to help the students learn how to better honor the Lord through their finances). We hosted another family night for the students at our house where we cooked for and hung out with them and we got to go on a fun date night just the TWO of us thanks to students sacrificially serving us by watching all our kids. We have stepped out in faith and saw the Lord use us to have many, many spiritual conversations (a cool story coming up next!) and we have spent lots of time praying for city and the campus. We went to see a broadway play “The Play That Goes Wrong” with the students and we spent yesterday evening after campus walking over the Brooklyn Bridge, eating good New York style pizza, and taking our group photo. Here are a few picture highlights:

The kids on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Photo op at the Broadway Play “The Play That Goes Wrong.”

Students sharing the Gospel (including the picture on the bottom where one of our summer project students who just placed his faith in Christ turned around and shared Christ the next day with a student at Queens College who placed her faith in Jesus).

Two sorta quick fun stories of how the Lord is moving:

1 – Yesterday, a few students and staff decided to travel to LaGuardia Community College in Queens College. They prayed when they arrived for the conversations they would have and one of the girls in our group prayed that they would see someone place their faith in Jesus. Another of our girls prayed that the Lord would do more than that and they would see two people place their faith in Jesus. We were so excited at the end of the day to hear that two students DID INDEED place their faith in Jesus. Just one of many examples of the Lord honoring our prayers….to Him be the glory! Here are the two students that went from eternal separation to eternal life yesterday.

2 – A month or two ago, we heard that there was professor starting at St. John’s University in the fall who really wanted to be a part of helping us reach the campus. We planned to connect with her in August.

Then, I went to my moms group this past week and they said we had a new mom joining us who had just moved from Philly. After she arrived, we did introductions and shared about our summer plans. When I shared that we were missionaries with Cru and that we were going to a conference and to see ministry partners, this new mom shared how her life had been impacted in college by Cru, that she was going to be a professor at St. John’s in the fall, and that she really wanted to talk with me about helping us at St. Johns.

I left, called Ed to tell him about it, and once we put the pieces together, we realized that it was indeed the same person!  What are the odds that of the all the people all over NYC, she happens to show up at our moms group, hear about what we do, say she wants to join in, and start connecting with us? I got to have her over for a play date and I have to say, I think the Lord brought her to St. Johns for such a time as this (she was raised Catholic for 14 years and is very aware of the ins and outs of the Catholic church which will be super helpful at St. Johns)…so excited to see how the Lord uses it all!  So fun to see him connecting all the pieces and showing off!

Summer mission will end this week….which is very bittersweet. On one hand, we are exhausted and ready for a good break. On another, we will miss seeing God work on these campuses this summer and we will miss these students and staff who have become so near and dear to us. We have been studying 2 Timothy as a mission and this week, we studied about Paul sharing with the believers about how he has finished the race and remained faithful. Would you pray with us that we would finish this race of summer mission in NYC well?

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